Have you ever had one of those days where you want to knit, maybe you even need to knit, but anything more complicated than stockinette just isn’t going to happen right now? I know I have, and I suspect I’m not alone. If you’re having one of those now, this pattern might be just the thing.

All you need to do is pick a yarn you love, cast on, and start knitting. After a while you’ll make those nifty little welts (they’re not hard, and I’ve included step-by-step photos showing you just how to do them) and work some quick stripes of a contrast color. It’s just enough excitement to be fun without ever being hard.

Pick your favorite colors (maybe your team colors…or your house colors) or go raiding your leftovers bin and find those little bits of special leftovers from other projects (or maybe little bits of handspun). Each stripe takes only about a dozen yards of the contrast color, so you’ve probably got something perfect on hand. And of course you can add in extra stripes if you want a bit more room to show off your contrast color (or even work the whole thing in one yarn throughout if you need to keep it even more mellow).

The hat is written in four sizes (castons of 96, 104, 112, and 120 stitches), and you should feel free to adjust your gauge a bit to fine tune the fit of the hat. Just be sure that you’re working at a gauge that gives you a fabric you like with your chosen yarn (you want something dense enough that you don’t see the contrasting yarn behind your fabric).

I recommend working at something around 5, 5.5, 6, or 6.5 stitches per inch, and I’ve included a table to help you figure out what gauge you’ll want to use for your size. With that range of sizes and gauges, the hat will fit a head between 17 and 27.5 inches (with lots of points in between).

You’ll be using two different yarns. I used about 200 yards of dk for the main color (gray) and about 25 of the contrast color (green), but having 250 yards of the main color and 50 of the contrast color on hand would be an even safer bet.

This is perfect for you if:

You’re in the mood for something mellow, but still adorable

You have some extra bits of fancy yarn you’re looking to show off

You want some little wrist warmers to match your hat (the pattern for those is in there too…though really it’s mostly a hat pattern)

It’snotfor you if:

You don’t like charts (the pattern uses charts, though for this pattern they’re super easy charts)